Thinking aloud...

By Aleksander Boyd

London 16.12.04 | I'm a Venezuelan in London and I live in a surreal world... David Blunkett lied, ceded to pressure and resigned, what sort of pressure, public or otherwise, could make Jessy Chacon act in equal way? Perhaps the recent politically related assassination of Antonio Lopez Castillo? Not long ago six Venezuelans were killed near the border with Colombia by the FARC, remember the bravado performance of Minister of Defence Julio Garcia Carneiro? “I would personally see that these criminals are brought to justice...”, we are still waiting minister... How about the burnt soldiers in Fort Mara? Hey Izarra, have you seen Silvino Bustillos?

Russian oil tycoon Khodorowski is meant to have paid in the vicinity of $300 million in the good old days to get his hands on Yukos. How much money has Venezuelan oil tycoon Chavez paid for PDVSA? Khodorowski is doing time for adventuring into Putin's territory, who will throw Chavez in jail for giving away our oil to Cuba?

The legal building of Venezuela, otherwise known as the Judiciary, has got new residents. None of them have brilliant legal minds or impressive CVs, although they excel in the new technique of sucking it to the new Fidel. See how their Colombians counterparts behave.

Three members of the IRA just got sentenced in Colombia to 17 years. The BBC reports:

“The prosecution successfully appealed the acquittal of Niall Connolly, Martin McCauley and James Monaghan... The three had been detained at Bogota's El Dorado airport in August 2001 as they were about to board a flight out of the country... Their arrest led to speculation that Irish republicans had formed links with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc)... The main charge against them was that they had been teaching the rebels the techniques of urban terrorism... The Irishmen strenuously denied this, saying they were in the area to monitor the fledgling peace process as well as being eco-tourists...”

Hang on a minute, monitoring “...the fledging peace process”, isn't something along the lines of “strengthening the fledging revolutionary process spearheaded by Chavez” what Ignacio Ramonet, Eva Golinger, Marta Hanecker, Dawn Gable, Danny Glover, Mark Weisbrot, Bill Fletcher et al do when they are invited to Venezuela at tax payers expense? Let us see what Lexis/Nexis has got on the 'Irish eco-tourist':

WAITING FOR FIDEL TO DIE - BUT WHAT THEN? | The current Latin American context does not bode well for a peaceful transition. In petroleum-rich Venezuela, Castro has a new ally in the populist demagogue Hugo Chavez, whose cheap oil keeps Cuba running. Chavez is quietly wrecking the economy while preparing the inevitable coup. In neighbouring Columbia, the peace process has broken down with the FARC, the pseudo-Marxist warlords who supply America's cocaine habit. The FARC are backed by a bizarre consortium of allies, including Fidel, Chavez and Gerry Adams's Sinn Fein-IRA, who supply weapons training. George Kerevan in The Scotsman, December 21, 2001, Friday

IRA part of world terror network, says the US | Three alleged Provos captured in Bogota last summer face charges of supplying mortars and providing explosives training to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc). Farc had close links to the Venezuelan government of Hugo Chavez, who was toppled by a military coup on Thursday, and had been supplied with arms and ammunition by the regime. IRA members are thought to have fled from Colombia through Venezuela after the arrests of James Monaghan, Martin McAuley and Niall Connolly in August. Monaghan and McAuley both have IRA convictions and Sinn Fein has admitted, after initially denying, that Connolly, who has no convictions, was their representative in Cuba. The Chavez regime counted Cuban and Russian agents among its advisers. By Toby Harnden in Washington, THE DAILY TELEGRAPH (LONDON), April 13, 2002, Saturday, Pg. 11

THE LYING GAME | But as the convoy melted down the jungle roads, news of the men's arrival was already reaching British intelligence service headquarters in London. Indeed ever since two of the men, Martin McCauley and James Monaghan, had left on separate flights from Ireland, their progress through Europe to Latin America had been carefully trailed. Niall Connolly travelled under the name of David Bracken, the pseudonym of the assassin in Frederick Forsyth's The Day of the Jackal....In fact, far from being a one-off, security sources in Belfast and Dublin suggest British intelligence believes that this trip was almost routine. MI6 has known about the IRA's Colombian connection for more than five years and a number of similar trips by 'advisers' have been allowed to take place in the past, say security sources. It has also emerged this weekend that the intelligence services have long suspected that the Provisionals hold a 20 -tonne arms dump of weapons inside Colombia.... As the files on each of the men began to arrive from London, the Colombians began to understand why the British had been so keen for their arrest. 'Mortar' Monaghan and McCauley had both served prison sentences for terrorist offensives and were renowned explosives experts, part of the Provisional IRA's Engineering Unit. Connolly was the fixer, the only one who spoke Spanish who had widely travelled through Latin America, based in Cuba....To add insult to US injury, Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams will next month visit the two Latin leaders least liked by the Bush administration, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Fidel Castro in Cuba. On Friday, the Cuban authorities admitted that Connolly, had been based in Cuba for 10 years as "the official Sinn Fein representative in Latin America", despite persistent denials of him by the party. Francis Elliott Jeremy Mcdermott John O'Farrell, Pg. 9 August 19, 2001, Scotland on Sunday